


The Astonishing Ant (Wo)-man

by rainbowagnes



Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Bodhi is a recovering gambling addict and a great friend, Breaking and Entering, Cassian's a SHIELD Agent, F/M, Heists and cons, Heroine's Journey, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Jyn is a safecracker, M/M, MCU AU, Modern AU, Post-Relationship, Rogue One/Marvel, Saw is The Punisher, marvel AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-09-27 08:20:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9984989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowagnes/pseuds/rainbowagnes
Summary: Down-on-her luck thief Jyn needs a job, cash, and a chance to get back into her daughter and ex-husband's good graces.Soon she's caught up as the central figure of the heist of a life time to re-steal her father's greatest invention from his crooked business partner. To succeed, she's gonna need the help of two former marks, her anxiety-prone partner in crime, and her estranged ex.But when the plan goes south, Jyn might just have to take on her father's old superhero mantle and become a hero on her own terms.





	1. The Mission

**Author's Note:**

> Well, straight into the angst!
> 
> I promise Plot Things start to happen in the next chapter. Not even Jyn thinks she's actually gonna go straight this time. And exposition. That's a gonna happen too.
> 
> And I have a place for pretty much every Rogue One character, but the easiest way to finesse in K2SO was as a formerly stray house cat named after cheese who hates Jyn. So.
> 
> Theme song of this chapter (and honestly quite a few of the rest of them) is "I Wanna Get Better" by Bleachers.
> 
> "I didn't know I was lonely till I saw your face. I didn't know I was broken till I wanted to change."
> 
> The science is probably all wrong and mumbo jumbo. If there's anything easily fixable, leave a comment. On the other hand, I think I've now done more serious thought into the quantum zone than the writers did.
> 
> Shoutout to @dasakuryo for being the ABSOLUTE BEST and translating all the Spanish in this for me a year after I published the original with the (clutches rosary) CARDINAL SIN of google translate. Seriously, thank you so much!

Copenhagen, 1989

She's been hungry for half an hour, but it isn't enough to tear her mother away from the Very Important phono call in the office or her father from his rows of microscopes and whirring white machines.  
"Come ON, Papa. You said we could go get hot dogs. And waffles."  
He doesn't even look up, and her annoyance grows.

"In a minute, min skat. Could you pass me my notebook?"

With an overdramatic sigh, she picked it up off of the coffee table and tossed it to him, hoping he'd ignore the patterns of ants and butterflies she'd drawn across his scientific notes in boredom.

Exasperatedly, she climbed on top of the lag bench and pulled herself up to his eye level. If she was going to have to wait in the most boring lab on earth, she might as well know what was going on.

"What is it, Papa?"

It looked like some tiny bits of glass, but she hoped it was more and that he hadn't truly gone off the deep end this time to study tiny pieces of a broken window.

"The answer to the universe. The theory of everything." There's a tone of wonder in his voice that Jyn just doesn't understand. Her father is enamored with things that can't be seen with the eyes or counted with the hands, just represented with endless, mind-boggling strings on numbers on important looking papers.

Jyn likes the more tactile side of science, the things she can smash with rocks and hold in her hands. She's figured out how to properly use a screw driver and spends plenty of hours breaking apart whatever junk people see fit to leave on the street: toasters, microwaves, motherboards, printers. Most of it's broken anyway, but she undoes it to the tiniest parts, trying to understand how everything fits together.

"That helps a lot."

"Do you understand what it is your mother and I do?"

"Uh, something with breaking rules. Of science."

"Finding loopholes, Jyn. Taking the laws and theories of physics written down by great men and trying to find the mistakes. And then expiating those mistakes until I find the secrets of the universe."

A lot of mumbo-jumbo, and Jyn still wants a hot dog. Sometimes she gets the impression her father's talking to air, or talking to her mainly to sort his own mind out. She doesn't mind all too much, because it makes her feel important being spoken to like an adult, like a scientific peer.

"Ok, then." She nodes very officially, and her father laughs. "What's that, then?"

She points to the crystals he's studying. There's some very familiar property to them that she can't quite explain, and when she reaches her hand out to him there's some kind of an involuntary pull.

Galen quickly flicks her hand away.

"Kyber crystals. Not of this world. From some kind of galaxy far stranger than ours."

"So- that's star dust?"

"One way to put it, I guess. But from a very different kind of star. One with particles that don't behave according to any laws of physics that I know."

"So this is stardust right here?" She reaches out to touch the crystals again, and this time he doesn't stop her, smiling because of her enthusiasm. "You work with stars right here?"

"You have stars in you, Jyn."

Her mother has finally finished with the endless phone call and leans over Jyn's right shoulder.

"Really?"

"We all do. Hold out your wrist."

She does, and her mother lightly outlines the blue veins visible against her pale skin.

"You see those blue lines, Jyn? Those are veins. You know what makes them blue?"

She doesn't.

"Iron. One of the elements that make up the universe. And it can only be forged in the cores of dying stars."

Jyn contemplates that for a minute. "So there's star dust in my blood?"

"Exactly." Lyra kneels down until she's eye level with Jyn. "There might be some difficult things ahead of time. Alright, sweetie? I just want you to remember this: you are made of a dying star. You carry stardust in your blood. You understand?"

This time, she does.

"Alright, honey. If anything happens, I know you'll be strong and brave. Because you are made of star dust."

Strong and brave. No one's ever called her that before, and it fills her with a warm, fuzzy feeling that warms her even as her father finally closes up the Bohr Institute for the night and they walk out into the freezing Danish night. Her mother undoes their bikes from their locks, and as Jyn sets hers up she can hear her mother whispering in tones she wrongly assumes are quiet enough.

"I just spoke to Saw."

"And?"

"And he thinks you should scrap the project and leave the country. Preferably the continent."

He dismisses her, and they set off peddling home. At night the wet cobblestones have a kind of alien quality to them, and they bring to Jyn's mind the scales of a massive black dragon. Her father finally buys her the long awaited hot dog and hot chocolate from a stand in the square while her mother buys groceries and tsks disapprovingly.

None of the Ersos are ready from the man who waits at their door.

"Bail?" Lyra's mouth drops open, and the first thought in Jyn's mouth is that he looks like a wizard from one of the fairytales her father reads to her, with his long dark trench coat flapping in the wind.

"I came to ask again about requisitioning your brilliant work for use of SHIELD."

"No. Absolutely not. What Lyra and I have found- it's too dangerous."

"And not so dangerous you don't both use it."

A long moment of silence, and Jyn realizes how cold she is. Neither of her parents are even noticing her right now, though.

"There's a difference between two self-destructive scientists using it for their own discoveries, and mass producing tech we don't even understand for causes we aren't even told about. And how do I know that if SHIELD gets it, HYDRA doesn't get it as well."

"You refer to youselves as self-destructive, and yet you have a daughter to take care of. She looks like you, Lyra, but she reminds me of my own."

"We have made provisions that she will be safe, under any circumstances."

"You may have to use them. What I'm saying is, your research has let the genie out of a bottle it can never be put back in. As soon as it was in writing, all of these "loopholes," as you call them, exist. The best you can do is decide when and how it gets out there."

"Or we decide it does not get "out there" at all." Her father is angrier than anytime Jyn has ever seen him.

"I am not threatening you, just informing you of the possibilities. Turn over the research to SHIELD, and you and your family live in American comfort. And you might see any youthful "transgressions" you might have had with HYDRA erased."

"No. Absolutely not."

"Then you have made the choice for yourselves. I warn you, I doubt Orson will be generous. Leave the country. Please. Burn the lab and the research, but leave. Take your daughter with you. Maybe one day she and Leia will be friends. But listen to me as a friends- there are people who'd see all of you die for what you have uncovered."

Her mother thanks the man, and he walks back out into the rain. A week later, Jyn is woken up with a bag packed in the middle of the night, and they leave on the midnight train to Belgium before even her father's business parter knows.

\------o0o----------

San Francisco, 2017

The hole-in-the-wall taqueria is still there, but the bodega on the corner has been replaced by a vape shop and the diner next door has sign up horrifically offering "Artisanal, Hand Crafted Toasted Flatbreads."

Jyn pictures signs like that as beacons calling out to hordes of gringo yuppies to move in and jack up the rent. Six months in prison, and it feels like The Mission's undergone some kind of unwanted, unprescribed transformation that sends her reeling as she walks down it's streets. But there's still it's familiar bright backbone. The newsstands selling the stacks of bilingual newspapers Lyra was just starting to be able to sound out. The murals, almost blindingly bright in the neighborhoods bizarrely sunny microclimate, and the park where Jyn used to walk Lyra after school.

For a second, Jyn wonders if they could try calling up the Avengers. But they seem to deal with the punch-able aspects of urban problems. Aliens and killer robots? That'll interest them. Rising rent costs and gentrification? Tony Stark would probably buy in whole heartedly and raze the place to the ground.

The building waits for her across the street. Neatly tended older orange brick with flower boxes and flags hanging from the windows. Her eyes drift involuntarily to a second story window where a distinctive green, red and white flag flutters in the breeze next to some window boxes who's flowers look like they've received a bit to much loving care.

Luckily, the door to the building's passcode hasn't changed. It swings open easily, and Jyn notices a pink bike with streamers hanging from it's handles parked in the entryway. Maybe it's Lyra's. It's probably Lyra's. With a pang Jyn wonders if she's started to practice without training wheels, if she's conquered her fear of riding down the city's hellish hills.

She almost hesitates outside the apartment door. Almost. If she were a better person, she'd walk away right now. Come back with a job and a pay check and at least some kind of balance. Maybe never come back.

She isn't a better person.

She raps neatly on the door and immidately hears the patter of light feet running towards the door.

"Whooooo is it?" After half a second, Lyra adds "Quiiiiiien Es?"

"Hey, peanut." She lines up her eyes with the keyhole, green eye meeting dark brown one.

"Mama!" Jyn hears the thump of Lyra jumping down from the chair and the door swings open. She thought she was ready for the shock of seeing her daughter again after six months behind bars. She isn't. Lyra's gotten at least two inches taller. Her braids have gotten longer, and darker at the roots, and it's the lack of resemblance between her and her mother has become even more abundantly obvious.

Lyra immedately wraps her arms around Jyn, pulling her into an almost viselike hug.

"I missed you so much, mama."

"I did too, peanut."

"Don't ever leave again."

"I plan on sticking around."

"Lyra! What did we talk about with strangers?" Cassian's voice comes from inside the apartment.

"But it's mama. And she isn't even that strange."

"What?" He just sounds mainly confused.

"MAMA'S HOME!"

"Jyn?"

Jyn looks up her burying her face in Lyra's dark hair. Cassian's standing in the entryway, looking like he's seen a ghost. Jyn's never been great with facial expressions, but even she can see the conflicting emotions on his face. Burning anger, sadness, irritation, but something like relief in there as well. Like hope, if she where the optimistic type.

"Hey."

"Jyn. Jyn, you're back."

"Yep." She feels conspicuously out of place in the entry way of their apartment, with it's slightly chaotic but overall clean domesticity. She wishes she'd had a chance to take a shower, or put on something separate from the grimy street clothes she was arrested in last September. She can already the street grime that's rubbed off on Lyra's immaculate uniform.

Cassian places his hands firmly over Lyra's ears, ignoring her attempts to brush them off.

"What the fuck where you thinking?" Not enough, she wants to say, but she can't. So she stands still, rooted at the doorway, feeling deep rooted sense of shame that's been her constant companion for the last six months (and if she'd being honest, long before that) well up inside her.

"Forgery of government documents. Aggravated assault. Possession with stolen property. Resisting arrest."

Another long pause. The silence ways heavy between them.

"Why, Jyn? Why?"

She can't answer. "One last job?"

"It's been "one last job" six times. One last job never pans out. You're addicted to it, Jyn."

She probably is. But this time- this time there isn't a last job. There's just a job, which will hopefully be legal. Which she needs to find, pronto.

"Why are you back, Jyn?"

"Because of you two."

"Really? We weren't enough to keep you here before. What's changed?"

"I have."

"You've told me that twice. You've told Lyra that twice, and she still actively believes that. She's gonna stop believing you some day. Smart kid. Pray it won't be soon."

He lifts his hands off of Lyra's ears, and she resumes her usual chatter. After six months away, it's God's music to Jyn's ears.

"Can you stay for dinner, Mama?"

As soon as Lyra says it, Jyn knows it's going to happen. Cassian can't deny his daughter anything. It's part of how she's walked in and out of their lives far more than she should have been able to, because Cassian can't see the look on Lyra's face and shut the door on her.

"Sure, duckling." She sees Cassian out of the corner of her eye. "One night," he mouths silently, and she gives him a thumbs up in response.

They end up going back out of the flat for dinner. The temperature feels like it's plummeted about twenty degrees while she was inside, and Jyn shivers in the February cold.

"Put this on." Cassian starts to shrug off his massive blue parka, and Jyn tries to stop him.

"Cassian, I'm fine."

"Can't have hospitalized for hypothermia on your first day out."

The heavy warmth of the parka falls on her and she decides to stop arguing. The whole thing would be easier if she could truly be angry with Cassian about anything. And truth be told, there are plenty of things for her to be angry with him about. The still obscure details of his pre-Fulcrum, pre- mission Erso life. The half-truths he's told over the years, and the way he doesn't seem to question- or more importantly, act against- anything SHIELD tells him to do.

But she can't be angry with him over the way he treats her, or the situation with Lyra. For those things, she has only herself to blame.

They end up at a burrito joint Jyn dimly remembers going to years ago, with cheerful music blasted over the loudspeaker and streamers hanging from the ceiling. Lyra pushes Jyn into the booth first, slides in, and pulls her father in after so that the three of them are locked in elbows-to-elbows. A waitress takes there orders.

Lyra pulls an action figure out of her pocket, a cat-suit clad woman with flowing hair and guns ablazing.

"This one's my favorite. She and Queso watch over everyone else when we leave home?"

"You still have Queso, then?" It's a cruel hope, but for a second Jyn thinks of the endless sob stories she hears of cats being run over or eating rat poison and wonders how Queso can't be one of them. "Why didn't he meet me at the door like he normally does?"

"He's too smart to think you're a threat, and he doesn't like you enough to come meet you."

"He is smart that way." Almost too smart, for a cat. Cassian found him through some black-booked SHIELD operation, and Jyn's still not sure he isn't secretly a genetically engineered beast or murder robot or something. She also isn't entirely sure why Lyra decided to name him after cheese, given he's black and prone to scratching strangers.

She picks up the Black Widow figurine. Someone's gone over the eyes and hair with a brown sharpie.

"What's this?"

"I wanted her to look like me."

On the other side of Lyra, Cassian grunts. "Not a lot of Latinas on the Avengers roster."

"But Black Widow is the best. And she always does her science homework and the recycling and is never, ever rude to Mrs. Cardenas down the hall." She has a familiar quirk to her mouth as she says it with a smile. "Right, papa?"

"Right."

Their food comes. Inevitably, Lyra ordered a full sized carne asada burrito and Jyn ordered an empty plate. Also inevitably, Jyn eats about three quarters of it. It's the first proper food she's had since the sandwich she bout at the seven eleven right after being let off the prison bus. She scarfs down most of it before looking up, almost embarrassedly. Cassian slides her the still foil-wrapped half of his burrito.

"Take it. For later."

This time, when they get back to the flat, Queso is waiting to greet them by trying to stick his claws in Jyn's leg.

"Lyra!" Cassian's voice called out from the kitchen. _"¡Mañana hay escuela! Es hora de ir a la cama"_

_"Pero papi, mamá acaba de volver."_

"Now! She'll be back in a bit."

With a huff, Lyra walks into the back rooms of the flat. Within the minute, Jyn can hear the taps of the bath running.

Cassian's waiting for her in the kitchen.

"The Spanish thing isn't fair." The moment she says it, she wishes she hadn't. There's a lot of things Jyn Erso is, but fair to her family isn't one of them. And nothing stings worse than being a hypocrite.

"Really? You want to talk to me about fair? Six months ago I get a call, middle of the night, that you've been arrested for stealing."

"Possession of stolen property. They couldn't actually prove I did it."

"You where found outside the de Young in a Maserati with three Diego Riveras in the back seat."

"Wrong place, wrong time. I didn't actually take them."

"I don't actually care, Jyn." And she knows she knows he means it with a bone-deep understanding. "You've been in and out of her life so much she doesn't know what having you actually in her life feels like."

"Cassian. Cassian, I'm trying."

"Maybe your trying isn't good enough. Look, Jyn, you can mess up your own life. And I don't care anymore if you mess up mine. But don't do that to Lyra."

"So what do you want me to do?"

"Find a legal job. Stick around the city for a few months so I know you won't just drop off the face of the earth again."

"Legal job? Like shooting people for SHIELD?"

"It's a desk job."

"Desk jobs don't pay that well. And you're in way to good shape to be sitting typing all day."

"Jyn . . ."

"If I had to guess, I'd say SHIELD dug up your fantastic Afghanistan record and now to kill the bad guys for them."

There's a long moment of silence between them. Jyn's reminded intensely of being questioned before a judge. Although this time, the stakes are infinitely higher.

"Look, I don't care what you do, as long as it makes money."

"Maybe that was part of the problem to begin with."

"But just don't die on Lyra. She needs one parent who isn't a screw up."

"Jyn. Jyn, whatever you may think of me, I want you back here in her life. I just want to know that you'll actually stick around before I let you back in for good."

She nodds. It's a fair ultimatum.

"Is it alright if I go check on her, before I leave?"

"Of course."

Lyra is already passed out on her bed, with Queso takes careful watch over her from the window. Her room's changed since Jyn was last here, the stuffed toys replacing themselves with library books. Black Widow stands vigilant on a shelf over the other toy avengers. She has a blue gel ant farm set up on a desk as well.

Her light's still on, and at first Jyn thinks it's a ward against the dark until she sees the book wedged underneath her. So Lyra fell asleep reading. Jyn carefully tries to pull the book out from under Lyra, feeling her hot breath and the messy spray of her straight hair as she does.

"I'll be back, duckling. I promise."

Jyn looks at the title of the book. Amazing Ants. So some childhood obsessions really do run in families.

Scotch-taped in a place of honor on the door is a massive drawing of what looks like a lopsided Thanksgiving turkey holding a green worm. It throws Jyn for a loop until she reads the shaky letters written beneath in green and red marker: My Kulcher.

She hasn't cried in years. For some unexplained reason, this brings out the waterworks.

She sits on the edge of the bed for a few minutes, trying to resteady herself, running her fingers through the soft mess of Lyra's hair. Cassian's right. She can screw up her own life, even screw up his, but she can't screw up Lyra's. She isn't leaving forever. She'll come back. She'll come back with a nice seventy-two grand a year job as an electrical engineer and she'll buy the apartment upstairs and this time, she'll be an Erso that sticks around when things go bad.

She's had enough practice at it she can even lie to herself.

The door of the bedroom opens a sliver.

"No need to kick me out, I was about to leave." She pulls herself up quickly, trying to wiper her eyes with the back of her hand. She almost physically knocks into Cassian on her way out.

He tries to embrace her as she walks out, wrap his arms around her, and for half a second, she almost lets him. But almost immediately she shakes him off.

"Jyn, I th-"

"I'm leaving." She's already almost at the door, trying to undo the knots she's idiotically made of her shoe laces.

"Jyn, what I was trying to say is, I was being unreasonable."

"No, you weren't. You where being perfectly fucking reasonable. I need to get out, get a job, get an apartment, not get arrested."

"Jyn- while you are doing that, I still think it would be good if you . . . came over? Sunday evenings, maybe? Help Lyra with her homework. She doesn't listen to me about maths."

She looks back into the apartment, trying to soak up every detail like the thief she is, like she'll never see it again. The grumpy black cat watching the window and the scattering of legos on the carpet and the upright plasticine figure of Natasha Romanov standing vigilant. Cassian's offer is tempting, and she feels a grip coming from this place, a rising current threatening to pull her under. A current she'll fight and come up breathless and sputtering and ready to run from again.

No. She's accepted this offer before, this kind of compromise, and reneged on her end of the deal.

This time, she's going to be better.

So she shakes her head and closes the apartment door with a click and a soft goodnight. It's as she's walking down the stairs into the night- now icy and swirling with needle-like winds- that it hits her that it's always been her that closes the door.


	2. The Inhabitant of Cell 26-A

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jyn gives Bodhi some super questionable psychiatric advice, they discuss the artistic inclinations of Jabba the Hutt, and exposition delivered via being fired from Baskin Robbins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plot thickens!  
> I had to look on the wookiepedia for the name of the alien who said he was going to kill Jyn in prison, and no joke that article made me cry. And almost die.  
> Side question: Is Big Hero Six part of the main Marvel Universe? Does that mean those heroes of San Francisco exist in the same world as Scott Lang?

**California State Penitentiary, 2015**

Bodhi Rook has been afraid of nearly everything, at one point or another. Of the dark and the things that hide in it, of heights and small spaces, or large crowds and of being alone, of fire and the cold. Of losing his culture, of never feeling entirely American. Of being mugged and of criminals, which has become an even shaper irony in recent years as he has become one.

But it seems his most enduring fear is in himself. That he will not be brave enough, that at the most important moments, he will crack.

His steps echo hollowly as the guards lead him across the linoleum floors, though endless hallways and cold, fluorescent light. He was jerked awake ten minutes ago with vague instructions that he'd be switching cells due to a fight between the inhabitants of cell 26-A. Fear immediately begins to course through his body. He's seen already seen the loser of the fight- a massive, burly, nearly inhuman man known collectively around the place as Kennel- icing his considerable wounds with his cronies, his body an angry swirl of black and purple bruising.

In twenty-four hours, he knows, that's going to be him.

Cell 26-A is at the end of a long hall of petty thieves and forgers, men and women who've fallen by the wayside and who's bark is infinetely worse than their bite. But he's still expecting a brawler, one of the 6'6'' walls of tattoed, scarred muscles Bodhi's spent the last eight months learning how to avoid.

Nothing could have prepared him for the woman who waits inside.

She radiates a kind of icy placidity, a calm that seems to rest only on the service. She's leaning against the side of the bottom bunk, limbs spread wide as if to try to take up as much space as possible with her small frame, but Bodhi gets the distinct feeling that she could spring to violent action in a second, that beneath the out-of-place stillness there's a burning anger.

She fixes her eyes on him. "Not what you where expecting?"

"Uh . . . no."

The door clangs shut and the guards leave. "Not what I was expecting."

She smirks and goes back to ignoring him. She's got to be one of the whitest people Bodhi's ever seen, with skin the color of heavy cream. But her hair's a dark spray, and for a moment she looks almost like one of the princesses out of the story's his mother would read to him. Delicate maidens locked in towers for the dashing hero to rescue.

He takes his place on the top bunk, noticing the sheets of paper carefully taped to the wall above her bunk. Children's drawings whose bright colors stand out against the white of the place. Erso has some unexpected depths, it seems.

He's still terrified of her.

But he's curious, too. The curiosity and fear have been at war inside him since he was old enough to know to be afraid of anything.

"Did . . . Was it really you that fought Kennel?"

"He said he would kill me." Her voice is cold and hollow, but it adds to the discordance of Erso. She looks like a china doll, has the accent of a proper English rose, has the history of a career criminal and the legends of a master thief.

"Really? How?"

"He underestimated me. I trust you will not make the same mistake."

He nodds even though she can't see. "Of course."

They sit in silence until dinner, the only sound the quiets rustle of Erso's book.

\---

The therapist told him his panic attacks should be getting better by now.

The therapist lied.

His dreams are the usual parade of nightmares, a nocturnal hell of memories he'd rather forget and future scenarios he's done everything in his power to avoid.

But this time the hell is still there when he wakes up.

The fear grips him the moment his eyes open, a heavy weight that smothers him and pushes him back against the bed. It's a nameless dark that fills his mouth, blocks his nose, and

He. Can't. Breathe.

He struggles against it, thrashing, but it's impossible to struggle against something so intangible, against the feeling of outright terror coming from his own mind. Something's coming, something materializing out of the dark, and he can't do anything to move away.

"Rook?"

He can't place the voice, can barely process the name. All he can do is try to fight what's coming for him, thrashing against his sheets until the feel like ropes pulling him back down.

"Rook, breathe. Just breathe. Listen to my voice, and breathe."

It's Erso's voice, it occurs to him, but it's taking all of his willpower just to breathe. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Kill the terror.

"Do you want me to turn on a light?"

He nodds. It feels like a monumental victory.

An bright light flicks on behind him, making his eyes sting and water but jolting him further awake.

"Whe-"

He sees Erso lit up from the light, shaking her head. "For now, just breathe." She must be holding a flashlight, but the way the beam hits her face reminds him almost of some of the Catholic shrines of saints he's seen around the city.

He does, pulling himself into a sitting position. Breathe in. Breath out. Kill the night.

"If it's about the flashlight, the guards around here aren't nearly as good at protecting their personal property as they think they are."

"That's a gu-" he tries to say, but he feels like a drowning man who's just come up for oxygen. Breath in. Breath out. Kill the fear.

"It's a guard's flashlight, just like my guard's cello tape and guard's eyeliner."

He realizes she's still standing on the ladder of the bunk bed.

"You where really thrashing around up there, Rook. Might be best if you come down to the floor."

He nodds, acknowledging that the way the world spins around him is likely not a good combination with a narrow bunk. So he lets her guide him down the ladder and to the icy floor. Her grip isn't painful, but it's stronger that he's expected. He slides to the icy floor, leaning against the wall.

He's had the occasional episode since he was a child. But the panic attacks have gotten worse in recent years. He's always recognized that that's what drew him to gambling, to street racing, to working as a getaway driver for people stealing other people's shit. In the adrenaline-filled heat of the moment, there isn't room in his mind to worry or question or think of anything else.

It's been the defining war in Bodhi's life. The fear and the things he does to calm it. The random information he fills his brain with even though he knows he'll never have a use for it. The people he's alienated or never even gotten to know.

There's a soft thud and he realizes Erso's sat down next to him. His last several sets of roommates let him become deeply aware of the irritation his panic attacks caused them- it's a reason for one of the purplish bruises that still hasn't faded- and he was preparing himself for Erso to follow in their footsteps.

"You probably aren't going to go right back to sleep again." She doesn't even sound particularly angry.

"No. Probably not."

"I never did."

"You got panic attacks at night?"

"Defining feature of my childhood."

"Not now?"

"I think I have enough shame to keep my up at night that my mind doesn't care about the fear anymore."

"Oh."

"Happened all the time when I was a kid. My dad's response was to give me a loaded Smith and Wesson and tell be to shoot the monsters. Only made me afraid of the gun."

Bodhi isn't really sure what to say to that. "Really?"

"Not so afraid I didn't sleep with it under my pillow."

"Quite a father."

"Foster father. Cop in the suburbs. Haven't spoken to him in years."

Bodhi's father had been a taxi driver who taught his son how to drive in middle school. By the time he reached high school, Bodhi could win almost any drag race he put his mind to, speeding past the competition in old clunkers he fixed with scavenged parts and only getting caught once. His dad hadn't known abut any of it until the day he had to come visit his son in prison, still dressed in his nice suit for the mosque.

His father hadn't ever learned about the gambling. By the time Bodhi had summoned the courage to tell him, Sadiq Rook hadn't been able to remember anything at all.

"Speak to my mother every day over the phone. But I feel like I've been lost to her for years, like all the things I've done have put up some kind of wall between us. You know?"

"Yeah, Rook. It's shame that makes strangers of us all, more than anything else."

Shame. It bubbles through him like lie, but he gets the odd feeling Erso understands.

"I'm Bodhi. Call me Bodhi."

"I'm Jyn." She holds out her hand and they awkwardly shake hands.

"I thought you where going to have killed my by now."

"My father didn't raise a savage, Bodhi. I only kill rapists, Neo-Nazis, and people who talk in the theatre."

She sounds like she's only half joking.

"So you've got a lot of people to kill."

"He left me a list."

"You follow it?"

"If I did I'd be in some lock-up some where a lot worse than this."

"Worse than this?"

"First time through the ringer, is it, Rook?"

"I went to Juvie twice. But first time getting caught as an adult." Once for drag racing, once for his bookmaking operation and then only because it had irritated some of the larger sharks in the area enough to press false charges.

"Juvie? More impressive record than mine. I never got properly caught as a kid."

"I'd guess having a Cop as father was part of that." He gets the feeling this woman's been up to much worse than him.

"I'd guess the same thing."

Offhandedly, Bodhi notices how his heart has stopped hammering and his blood has stopped roaring. Good. What ever Erso's plan is, it's working.

She seems to notice his sudden pause.

"How do you do it?" He finally asks.

"Do what? I destroy everything I do."

"How do you . . . how do keep going? How are you not . . . not stuck? I always feel like I'm running from something, but no matter how hard I try to move, I'm frozen and stuck rooted to the ground."

"Maybe I'm just as stuck as you are."

No. No one could be that stuck, Bodhi thinks. He tells her so.

"Alright, I don't know if this is helpful, but there's only one thing that's ever helped me." She takes a long, long breath. "I picture a cave. A cave that's always been there, always been a part of me. You know?"

He nods, even though he doesn't.

"And I put everything in that cave. And I don't let it out."

"Everything?"

"Anything that's ever scared me. Anyone who's ever left me. It goes in the dark and it doesn't come out again."

"But what about the things you want to remember? Your friends, your family." There's plenty Bodhi would rather forget, but getting rid of everything- that seems even worse.

"The only things I want to remember come visit me for an hour every Thursday evening. Everything else can go to hell."

"Huh. Everything in a cave?"

"Everything in a cave. And then you leave it in the dark, lock the door, and go as far the hell away as you can."

"I'll remember that."

Everything in a cave. The drag racing, the years and years of gambling he waited far too long to seek help for, the work for the Imperials. Letting down Abu and Mum, again and again and again. He tries to picture a cave so deep none of it can ever resurface, but in every scenario the shame still comes slithering to the top.

"Why do you have enemies in here? You don't seem the type to make them." Her voice is soft, delicate.

"Still do."

"Serious ones, if I had to guess. What'd you do? Fuck the boss's mistress? Embezzle?"

"I started . . . after my dad was in the hospital, and he died, and I- . . . " Bodhi's stutter comes back with a vengeance. "I started doing jobs. Simple ones. Drive a box to point A. Drive a person to point B. Don't ask questions."

"Uh huh." Her voice is strangely unjudgemental. No trace of the "well what the fuck where you thinking?" attitude that colors so many of his conversations these days.

"It was the Imperial gang."

"Fuck." The Imperials. Some of the most notorious smugglers of drugs, guns, people, but they often did work under different names, trading efficiency for notoriety.

"So I got caught on purpose, and I gave them a list of everyone I'd ever met in the gang- which wasn't a lot, but I have a good memory, I remember everything and-" And his voice shuts off."

"And that's one of the braver things I've heard of a man doing."

"Really?" He has a lot of adjectives to describe himself. Brave isn't one of them.

"Yeah. Most men are bastards, in my experience."

"Mine too."

"It's the ones who aren't that you got to be afraid of."

"Just works better for me to be afraid of all of them, I guess."

"Yeah, but listen. What you did- that was important. That was brave."

"It was stupid."

"It saved lives. My ex-husband's spent years trying to track down some of those Imperial bastards. No one ever just tries to turn em in like that."

"Your ex-husband also a cop?" This lady needs to stop getting involved with cops, for all the criminal crap she seems to like to do. His father always said that women married men who reminded them of their fathers, but Bodhi thought this one would have been smart enough not to. At least her ex-husband wasn't also a vigilante who gave kids pistols. Probably.

"Of a sort."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Fire away."

"Did you really beat up Kennel?"

She smirks, almost a half smile, and he has his answer.

"Thank you."

"Bastard deserved it. You've run afoul of some of the motherfuckers in this place, haven't you?"

"I put some of them in here. One of them likes to remind me."

She nodds. Outside, the voice of the guard patrolling the block has changed from a dusky feminine voice to a shrill man's. Turnover is usually 5:30 in the morning, Bodhi knows, and he feels like hasn't slept in days. Today is going to be hell.

She notices as well.

"Probably best to see if you can get any sleep at all."

He climbs back the ladder up to his bunk, he mind emptier than it has been in weeks, and he's about to nodd off again when he sees a pair of startlingly green eyes pulled up over the side of his bunk.

"One last thing, Bodhi. This man- did he punch with his left fist or his right?"

\----o0o-----

**San Francisco, 2017**

It's about thirty seconds after she leaves the apartment that Jyn realizes she doesn't have anywhere to go, or anyway to get there. There's $2.63 in her pocket and an expired BART card. For a second, she thinks about going back to the flat, asking Cassian for cash or to borrow his car. But that's not going to do any favors to her image as a responsible, non-criminal adult.

So she calls Bodhi instead.

He picks her up on the first ring. "Jyn? Is this you, or does some ran-"

"It's me, mate. Listen, I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm out of options. Could you give me a ride back to your place?"

"JYN! You're out already? Sorry if that came out wrong. It's great to hear from you again. Uh, where are you?"

"The Mission. Residential street two blocks off of Cezar Chavez."

"Okay, uh, I'll be right over."

"Thanks mate. Listen, I'll owe you a big one after this."

"Don't worry about it." There's the sound of hustling and jangling keys from the other end of the line.

"Don't speed!" Jyn calls down the line, but he's already hung up.

In order to get out of the cold, Jyn walks into a bodega down the street that's still passably seedy. It might not be the brightest idea to spend her last $2.63, but then, she's just been full of bright ideas lately. And at least it gives her a reason to go inside.

She spends about the longest amount of time feasibly possible going through the aisles, reading the titles of the tabloids and comparing the prices on packs of gum. Lemonade got snubbed at the Grammy's, Beyonce's pregnant with twins, and there's only a few months left of _Qien es Quien_. And she's seriously considering the possibility of Donald Trump being part of an invading Skrull force, which at this point seems less terrifying than him being an actual, flesh-and-blood human.

"Hey, moron!" the kid in front calls. "Buying anything? Or just here for some kind of drug deal?"

She quickly grabs the most recent edition of The Chronicle and a few rounds of Mazapan and slammed them down on the counter. The kid still looked more bored than anything.

"Happy now?"

"That'll be $2.67."

"Fuck." She's trying to weigh rather she wants sugar or the immediate news more when the TV behind the counter flags her attention.

"Can you rewind that?" She realizes exactly how idiotic that sounded as soon as she says it.

"Sure, princess, I'll rewind this live, cable tv just for you. 'Hello, Univision, i've got a grin-"

She almost puts a hand on his mouth to shut him up.

The unmistakeable figure of Orson Krennic- still dressed head to toe in white, like the world's weirdest narco- graces the television screen. She hasn't heard a word about him in years, hasn't seen him in anything but the nightmares where she kills him a thousand times.

But here he is again, white coat flapping as he stalks up the steps of his labratories and waves to the camera.

The news anchor is talking anamatedly in Spanish mumbled by the crappy quality of the television set and the roar of the crowd.

_"Gran innovación . . . tecnología militar . . . Krennic."_

Grainy photos flash on screen, and for a moment Jyn can't breathe. There's headshots of her father and her mother. Serious photos taken for an academic publication, but there's a lightness and peace in the photos that Jyn doesn't remember her parents ever having.

"Huh. Y'know, you really kind of look like that lady." The clerk jabs his thumb at Lyra's pixellated face. "Around the hair and face, y'know?"

The anchor has gotten very excited now. _"Desparición mysteriosa . . . hija . . . Jyn . . . nunca identificado."_

Jyn's kindergarten photo flashes across the screen. Huh. Her daughter looks a lot more like her at that age than she thought she did.

"You look even more like that one. Uncanny valley or something. Cloning shit. But seriously. If I looked that much like the missing kid of some rich scientists, I'd go try to cash that in."

"I'll take the Mazapan."

"Creepy similar," he tells her as rings her up. "Could be your mom."

She grabs the candy and stalks back into the freezing night.

\---

Bodhi's waiting for her outside the store.

"Oy, Jyn." He waves frantically, as if he's afraid she's not going to notice him. "Over here."

She jogs down the street to where he and his beat up van wait for her.

"Thanks, mate. I owe you a million for this." She climbs in, feeling the magnificent warmth wash over her.

"No problem. I couldn't just leave my former cellmate hanging, could I? Not after all those times you helped me out in there."

He's trying to make her feel better, but it doesn't particularly help. She's still racking up a debt that's going to take, at best, months to repay, even if Bodhi will never acknowledge it. She's still made him drive out from Oakland to the Mission in the dead of night, and even if it's unspoken, she's still going to have to crash at his place when they get back.

And all she's got to her name is $1.34. It won't even cover the cost of the gas.

She pulls out the foil wrapped remains of Cassian's burrito and holds them out to Bodhi. "If you're hungry." It feels like a pitiful effort. She feels pitiful, having to rely on anyone else for anything.

"What kind is it?"

"Uh, lengua. I think."

"You should keep it."

Like it always does, the van sounds like a dying cyborg when Bodhi tries to start it. But also like it always does, it finally starts itself up.

Bodhi pulls out his phone and turns on a podcast.

"The Science of love," the radio announces. "Why relationships break up, and how personal and emotional defects-"

"Could we listen to something else?" She snaps harder then she meant to.

"Uh, sure." He drives one handed, swerving effortlessly though the San Francisco traffic, while he searches his phone. "This one's about manatees. Nothing bad with manatees, right?"

"Right."

"Except for, you know, manatees. Why do they even exist? They're like floating grey marshmallows."

"They don't hurt anyone."

"That's a really low margin, Jyn."

"Not a margin low enough for me."

"So, the Mission. It's wear you used to live, right? Before."

"Before."

"How's the kid?"

"Fucking fine without me around." She almost screams at him, then falls back in her seat, startled even by her own outbirst. "I mean, fine. Sorry."

He nods and goes back to driving.

"So how's your boyfriend?"

"He left me."

"How about your father?"

"He died."

"How about your mother?"

"Her visa got blocked."

Jyn isn't really sure what to say, and neither is Bodhi. For a few minutes they drive in silence, listening to Bodhi's podcast explain how drunk sailors used to mistake manatees for beautiful women.

"But I still got the van!"

She nodds in and out of sleep for the next half hour, as Bodhi weaves his way in and out of traffic and finishes not only the episode about manatees, but the following segments on ants and wasps.

She wakes up with a start in a familiar Oakland parking lot.

"Hey, Jyn? Jyn, we're home."

The parking lot still looks pretty much the same as it did last time, and Jyn can see the strobe lights that mark where two of Bodhi's idiotic neighbors have tried to start up a club in the apartment right underneath his. The only thing different is a soft blue pickup truck now wedged into the spot next to Bodhi's. It's a retro relic, plastered over with assorted stickers for various causes and a selection of pride flags. She can see a truly tacky selection of model planes hanging in the winshield.

"Who's is that?"

"What?" Bodhi sees her point at the truck, and for a moment he freezes. It's dark, but Jyn swears she can almost see him blush. "That's - That's Skywalker's. Luke Skywalker's."

"Who's that?"

"Moved in right after you left. Farm boy come to the big city, I think. Works over as a mechanic over at Toshi."

Jyn isn't in the mood to meet anyone tonight, but there's a blonde kid who insists on opening the door to the aparment building to her like a gentleman.

"Jyn, this is Luke. Luke, Jyn."

Luke holds his hand out to Jyn. "A pleasure to meet you, ma'am." He has an innocient, wide-eyed look, compounded by the bucket hat and the lemon-yellow jacket he's wearing.

"Ma'am?" She narrows her eyes at him, waiting to be the joke.

"That's just Luke. Really polite and all. Nicer than the rest of us."

She sizes up Bodhi again. Yep, definitely blushing.

"Well, pleasure to meet you to, Luke."

Luke follows them up the rickety stairs. "He lives in the apartment across from mine."

"Good thing, too. Mr. Rook is a really swell hall mate. The only time I can hear him is when he's watching those Indian movies. And I uh, I like hearing those."

"Why don't you go and watch one over at his place some time?" She doesn't know quite what's going on between the two of them, but it could probably use some prodding along.

They both blush. "Luke's really good, Jyn. Reaal good, nice, guy." The emphasis Bodhi puts on "nice guy" clearly means "guy who'd call the police if he found any of crap stashed around the place."

"Right. Well, nice to meet you Luke."

"You too, Jyn." The reach their floor and Luke waves.

Bodhi's apartment looks the same as it did when she left, but at this point Jyn is too tired to care. She takes a shower, changes into a clean set of clothing, and passes out as soon as she falls on Bodhi's couch.

She's young. Younger than Lyra, even, and far less sure of herself. Far more scared of the cold, of the monsters that lie under her bed, of Julemanden, of fire, of being left by herself for even a minute in Ikea or the train station. Fearful of the dark and the things that hide within it, so that she wakes up every night, shivering in bed.

Most nights, one of her parents will flick on the lights and sit up with her with a cup of hot chocolate and a story. Sometimes her mama reads to her nonsense English words from an encyclopedia of rocks. Sometimes her papa makes her write out math, filling her mind with frustrating series of numbers that refuse to be tamed rather than teeth and claws and too many eyes.

Today is not one of those nights.

This time, when she wakes from her nightmare- she's been left alone in an icy bunker and there's a man in white who's been chasing her and she's stuck in a cave and even while it collapses in on her she can't get out- this time, no one comes. Her room is empty and dark, and while a pink nightlight in the corner blinks reassuringly, it isn't enough to truly convince her that the monsters are gone.

So she wraps herself in a dressing gown and slips out of the dark room.

The bright light greets her immediately, making her eyes tear up. It seems unfair that just seconds ago she could have felt so utterly dark and alone. But outside her room, the apartment is bright and filled with the laughing chatter of people and the clink of glasses. Her parents are having a party, and they didn't invite her.

She notices Far first, holding a beer and animatedly telling a story that the people around him seem to find very funny, even though Jyn can't understand a word of it. She glares at the injustice of having Papa out here having fun, leaving alone to the monsters. Mum is off to the side in her usual more reserved way, as though she can't really separate herself from the rocks she spends all day studying. She always looks sort of out of place, and Jyn knows she's the most out in the field, with no one around but her family.

And sitting in a place of honor is him. The man in white. Orson Krennic. Jovial and tipsy, which seems unfair, because he doesn't get to be happy, not even in her dreams, not after he's done the things he did to her parents.

"Papa!" She cries, and she does't know if she wants the attention or to warn her parents about the man in white, but her father's head doesn't turn, and he's stuck with Krennic, closed off from her by a wall she will never breach. "Hey." Someone's shaking her, and her first instinct is to fight them off until she sees a familiar pair of brown eyes looking down.

She's shocked awake million miles away from the spare, white Danish apartment into a grubby Oakland flat that smells like mildew and old furniture. Bodhi's leaning over her.

"You were starting to thrash about, and you where calling for your father, and-"

"Thank you for doing that." She must have been out for longer than she realized, because bright light is streaming in through the windows.

Bodhi's flat hasn't changed much, aside from the chipped ceramic bowl on the coffee table holding a growing pile of plastic chips from his Gambler's Anonymous meetings. She's proud of how far he's come in the sixth months she's been rotting behind bars.

"I made some tea, if you want some."

"I would."

"Morning, Jyn." He pours her a cup and sets it on the coffee table. Bodhi's flat is a postage stamp, with barely enough room to shove the furniture he always seems to be picking up from jobs or yardsales. From her spot on the couch, which takes up almost the entirety of what might generously be called his living room, Jyn can see virtually every corner of his flat.

"Is my stuff still here?"

"Oh, yeah. Under the couch."

He helps her shove the couch against the window- which is a trick in itself, given the detritus of previous jobs he's left behind it and forgotten about- and roll the carpet off the floor to reveal a loose floorboard. She pries it up with her fingernails. The cache she left in his apartment before the de Young job is still there, untouched. A few stacks of photographs, a few of Lyra's drawings. Her forged documentation for Lianna Hallik. The wedding band she's held on to without fully rationalizing why. A few changes of clothes, her favorite blue scarf and green canvas jacket.

"I checked your other caches around the city. Solo's cleared out everything and fled for San Diego with Bacca."

"Shit. That mean's Lianna Hallik's the only identity I've got until I can fix up a new one."

"Word is that Solo was trying to pay off some big-time debts he'd racked up with Jabba with a quick fix. Wanted something really flash to settle his debts with Jabba, you know? Thought a Maserati and the Rivera's would solve the balance."

It's eight in the morning and Jyn's already got a pounding headache.

"The fuck was Solo thinking?"

"I know, right? I don't mean to generalize, but some how Jabba doesn't seem like the type to appreciate how Rivera depicts communist ideals through a Mexican lens, you know? How his style is differentiated by the use of stylized naturalism, heavily influence by pre-Columbian art. Are the calla lilies representative of the girl's struggles or her hopes? Is she kneeling because she struggles with them, because her hopes are too heavy? And what do the calla lilies represent? As symbols of death, do they mean the suffering of Mexico's native people?"

"That is most definitely not what Solo was thinking.You listen to too many podcasts, Bodhi." She takes a long sip of her tea, trying to calm the throbbing in her temples that Bodhi's monologue has only exacerbated. "But I'd guess that where art's involved, Jabba's some kind of tits-and-ass orientalist fetish creep, so point taken."

"That is weirdly specific."

"Almost like I've seen them for myself."

"Did you?"

"Broke into his mansion myself when I was fifteen. One of Saw's missions. Tried to take out Jabba myself."

"I'm guessing you didn't."

"This would all be a lot more interesting if I had been. Got stopped by his security on the second floor, and didn't have the guts to kill my way out of it."

"You have a lot of weird stories, Jyn. You're like some kind of magnet for weird, messed-up people."

"Maybe because I'm a weird, messed-up person myself."

"Yes, but you're my best, weird messed-up friend." He smiles, and she ruffles his hair familiarly. Bodhi is like what she always pictured having a brother would feel like, even though she's only known him a few years.

"Did I tell you about that new job I've got hooked up?"

Her stomach drops out from under her.

"You did not."

"I got a really good tip a week ago, and I though you might be interested."

"No, Bodhi. I can't. I haven't even been out for twenty four fucking hours, and there's Lyra."

"That's fine. I just wanted to swing this by you first. The payout's supposed to be something like 800,000."

She shouldn't even be considering this. It's a mark of her horrible character that she does.

"I wanna know about that tip. Gotta be airtight. If I fuck this one up. . . " If I fuck this one up, then it's all over. I'm back in prison, and the next time I see Lyra she's graduating high school. She doesn't say it, but she runs the worst version of every scenario in her head.

"Okay, sure mate. Listen, I don't want to drag you into anything you don't want to do, but this tip's really good, right?"

"Right." She's going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"I was at an Anonymous meeting with my girl Samirah. You know Sam, right? Anyways it was the meeting where I was opening up about my relapse in Tijuana where I woke up with more money than I started off with. And she starts talking about this tip she's getting from Nasir, who incidentally is the guy who made me question my sexuality and who I lost my virginity to at summer Urdu camp after tenth grade."

"The wrong details, mate. The wrong details."

"Right. Anyway, Nasir's ex boyfriend Emilio's got a job doing rich people's yards. And he hears a tip that there's these two rich Chinese dudes next door, and they got this super classy safe in their basement, with all the tumblers and stuff. Right?"

"Yeah, right."

"So then Nasir's like, "this sounds interesting," but he needs sources, cause we both know how you like sources, So he's waiting his turn for the plate at the annual baseball game for the Bay Area Halal Meatcutter's Association when he runs into Ignacio. And then he tells Nasir who tells Samirah who tells me, cause she knows I got mad thieving skills, to tell you."

"Tell me what?" She asks, but with a sinking feeling she knows.

"That there's these two rich guys with a super cool safe in their basement, and they're gonna be in Hong Kong for the next two weeks on some kind of a romantic vacation."

"Fuck, no," are the first words in her mind and out of her mouth. "Absolutely not. No way. Wishing you luck, Bodhi, but no." "That's totally cool, Jyn. Just wanted to swing this one by before I go tell Nasir about it."

"Thanks for telling me about it, though."

"No problem. Going job searching today?"

"Yep." She isn't looking forward to it, either, a woman in electrical engineering who hasn't done a day of engineering work legal in four years.

"Well, good luck on that one."

"I have a masters in electrical engineering. How hard can it be?"

\---o0O------

"Welcome to Baskin Robbins." For the millionth time in a day, Jyn reminds herself that this is a temporary job to pay back Bodhi. This is a bridge to a job that pays ninety thousand a year an-

"Do you guys have burgers?" There's s clueless looking, slightly dweeby guy looking over the menu in front of her.

"No. This is Baskin Robbins."

"I'll just have a hot pretzel with mustard."

"Don't have that either."

"I'll just take whatever's hot and fresh."

"Mate, you really don't understand what we sell here, right?"

"Liana?"

Jyn turns and sees Maz's small frame in the doorway to her office. Fuck.

"Can some one else help this dimwit?"

Maz beckons her, glaring.

"Office. Now."

\---

The moment Jyn sees the neatly stapled stack of paper waiting for her on the desk, she knows she's screwed.

Maz neatly slides it across the table towards her. Maz is tiny- significantly smaller than Jyn, even, which is saying something- with a navy headscarf and glasses that magnify her eyes to near alien proportions.

"I have had a most enlightening morning, Liana. Or should I say, Jyn Erso?"

Jyn scans her eyes over the papers. It's not a comprehensive list, but there's an outline of most of the major illegal activities she's fucked up enough to get caught over in the last twenty years.

"Jyn Erso. Thirty-three. Petty career criminal, with one notable exception at Vistacorp. Daughter Esperanza Andor. Ex Husband Cassian Andor. All of these are correct, yes?"

"Yes." Her mouth feels like sawdust. Most of this crap isn't even written into the SHIELD databases, and Cassian has been living under a collection of aliases for as long as she's known him. He wasn't even Cassian Andor when they first met. "How did you find all of this?"

"When you live long enough, you start to see the same eyes in different people. You're a woman looking for something, Jyn Erso. Ond day, i think, you will find it."

"What am I looking for?"

"Maybe the problem is that you don't even know yourself."

But she does know what she's looking for. Lyra. Money. Lyra. A decent job. Lyra. A chance to pay back Bodhi.

"I fear you are rather overqualified for your job here, Ms. Erso. A degree in electrical engineering from CalTech is a terrible thing to waste scooping Tutti-Frutti Blast. Not to mention your rather prolific career as a thief."

"I just need a job. Turns out security firms aren't terribly interested in hiring women with children, not to mention cyber thieves. I tick both boxes."

"According to my sources, you were the sole perpetrator of the heist on the Vistacorp servers four years ago. The biggest single-company redistribution of wealth on the West Coast."

"You mean I was the only idiot bloody idiotic enough to do it."

"It was good work, Ms. Erso. Brave work. You helped thousands of people."

"I hadn't meant to. I just noticed that things where off in the costs, and I fixed them." At first she'd seen it as a mistake, a beauracratic oversight. That had changed when black-clad corporate lackeys showed up at her door.

"It was on pediatric heart medication. You saved lives. And yet six months ago, you were arrested trying to steal a painting. What changed, Ms. Erso?" Maz's eyes continue to drill into her.

"Nothing. I was a fuck up then and I'm just as fucked up now. I just don't delude myself with visions of heroic grandeur."

"That was heroic."

"You know what I've learned about heroes, Kanata? About all these Robin Hood, steal-from-the-rich, give-to-the-poor types? They always end up hanged." When the story was over, the Sherriff of Nottingham went home for a cup of tea, and Robin Hood went in the ground. "I have a daughter." And I won't leave her, she thinks. Not now, not again.

"Ah. Esperanza?"

"We always call her Lyra." Esperanza had always seemed like too much, for such a small person. Maybe when she was older.

"Whatever my personal feelings about what may have landed you in prison to begin with, I cannot let you continue to work here, Ms. Erso. I am very sorry. Perhaps, if Esperanza were ever in need of a summer job, she could find one here."

"Thank you." It's more than she could have hoped. At least the police aren't on her case over this.

"And if a certain thief where to take a final prize, free of charge, the Oakland City Baskin Robbins could overlook such a loss."

She gets up to leave, but Maz hold out a hand to stop her.

"I have often found that we create our own paths in this world. But if we want to know what path to take, we must first know where we want to end up."

Jyn helps herself to two massive scoops of Jamocha almond fudge and calls Bodhi.

"Where did you say that robbery was, again?"

"Some ritzy part of Silicon Valley. The marks' names are Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus."

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwiTkuS2orbSAhUmrVQKHTKlCdcQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fm.imdb.com%2Fname%2Fnm5127299%2Fmediaviewer%2Frm286453760&psig=AFQjCNHeoo2Nce2NxbDXKQLHdX3ER4pA-g&ust=1488490781033015


End file.
